A portrait painter who also painted icons and headed restoration works. Georg Christoph Crooth was born in Germany, in the capital of the Wuerttemberg principality. His first teacher was his father who was a Stuttgart court painter. In the late 1730s Grooth continued his studies with the Saxon court painter A.Maniochi. In 1741 Grooth signed a contract to serve in Russia as a court painter and consequently, at the age of 25 the artist found himself in Russia. The contract was extended "on the same terms" under Elizaveta Petrovna. In 1742, along with L.Caravaque and I.Ya.Vishnyakov, he took part in preparing the coronation festivities in Moscow. Grooth was one of the most talented artists in Russia working in the rococo style ("Portrait of Empress Elizaveta Petrovna on Horseback with a Negro Boy", 1743). Being an excellent decorator, Grooth took an active part in creating interiors in Peterhoff and Tsarskoye Selo. He painted portraits of the Empress, her courtiers, prominent statesmen, assisted in forming royal art collections in Tsarskoye Selo, and worked with the Russian Academy of Sciences. Throughout his life in Russia Grooth had a constant stream of pupils. In the late 1740s I.P. Argunov was one of them. Grooth lived in Russia to the end of his days and died in Petersburg (in Tsarskoye Selo, according to other sources).